The Story of Indian Animation

Before cinema came into existence, motion could be seen within Indian art in the form of shadow puppetry. The traditions of storytelling were a union of education coming together with entertainment.

Tholu

Tholu 1

Image Source: Films Division of India
Another thrill of pre- cinema era was the ‘Shambharik Kharolika’ or 'The Magic Lantern'. It was in the late 19th century, Maadanrao Madhavrao Chitale, a Mumbai based engineer painted some events from the life of Sri Krishna on slides. He used the magic lantern to project those slides. His friend Mahadev Patvardhan also experimented with the device. This visual treat was later supplemented with dialogues, narration, lyrics and background music. Starting from the small shows in the neighborhood, Patwardhan started using his device for commercial purposes, entertaining the public depicting tales from the Ramayan, Mahabharata, Raja Harishchandra, Shekhar Dashratha and many more.

The Magic Lantern
Image source: Films Division of India
Later, the Lumiere Brothers invented the miracle of the century- ‘The Motion Picture Camera’ and introduced the art of cinematography in India by screening its six silent short films at Bombay’s Watson Hotel in 1896. Thereafter various films were produced.

Lumiere Brothers

Motion Picture Camera

Dadasaheb Phalke the father of Indian cinema was a visionary who could see the future of the Indian cinema as the fusion of art, architecture, drama and magic. He made his debut feature film in 1913 called ‘Raja Harishchandra’ where he also used the special effects.

Later in 1915, after a lot of struggle he created a stop motion using matchsticks and made a film called ‘Agkadyanchi Mouj’- 'The Game of Match Sticks' which officially marked the beginning of the Indian animation. He is said to be inspired by a French animator Emile Cohl who also performed some experimental animation using matchsticks. Phalke later did films like Laxmicha Galicha and Vichitra Shilpa, though none of these got a theatrical release.

Dadasaheb Phalke

Akadhyanchi mauj

'The Pea Brothers’ was the first film in India to get a theatrical release in 1934 at the Chitra Cinema of North Calcutta. A man named Gunamoy Banerjee shot this 3-4 minute long black & white, hand-drawn animated film jointly at MP and Bharatlakshmi studios. He later became a renowned live action filmmaker due to the lack of finance and response towards his animated film. In the same year the first animated film with a soundtrack was made by BN Sircar of the New theatres of Bengal called ‘On a Moonlit Night’.

Pune based Prabhat Film Company also announced a cartoon film ‘Jambu Kaka’, which was animated by Raghunath K. Kelkar. It was released at the Majestic Cinema, Bombay, on November 15, 1934.

'Jambu Kaka'
Image Source: Films Division of India

At the same time, K.S Gupte and G.K Gokhle learnt the animation techniques by watching the American cartoons. Their first experiment in animation was a film called ‘Shikaar’.

The period of the Second World War witnessed a shortage of raw film stock. Due to which filmmakers chose animation as a medium to convey their thoughts and ideas.
Various other animated films were released like'Bakam Bhatt’ by Kolapur Cinetoons'Lafanga Langoor' (1935) by Mohan Bhavani‘Superman's Myth’ (1939) by G.K. Ghokhle‘Akash Pataal' (1939) by Mandar Malik'The War That Never Ends' by IFI'Cinema Kadampam' (1947) N. Thanu were released.

'The War That Never Ends'- An animated film on the fight against disease.
Image Source: Films Division of India

'Cinema Kadampam'- A series of animated caricatures of popular film stars of the 40's.
Image Source: Films Division of India

In 1951, Bombay based Ranjit Movietone made ‘Jumbo The Fox’, and later New Theatres made ‘Michke Potash’, directed by Bhaktaram Mitra. Shaila Chakraborty and Rebati Bhushan worked as animators in this film.